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    The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
    The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
    The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

    Written by Charles Todd

    Narrated by Simon Prebble

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “One of the best historical series being written today.”
    —Washington Post

    “Todd once and for all establishes the shell-shocked Rutledge as the genre’s most complex and fascinating detective.”
    —Entertainment Weekly

    The Confession is historical crime fiction at its finest, continuing Charles Todd’s New York Times bestselling mystery series featuring severely damaged British World War I veteran, and yet still astonishingly efficient Scotland Yard inspector, Ian Rutledge. Todd’s troubled investigator wrestles with a startling and dangerous case that reaches far into the past when a false confession from a man who is not who he claims to be leads to a brutal murder. The Confession is a must-read for every fan of Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Jacqueline Winspear, as post-war London’s best detective finds himself ensnared in a dark and deadly investigation that unearths shocking small town secrets dating back more than a century.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJan 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062116383
    Author

    Charles Todd

    Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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    Reviews for The Confession

    4/5

    215 ratings25 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was a very different sort of detective story. It is so well written in the time of the ending of the Great War. It takes the reader back in history.
    • 5/5
      I honestly did not see that murderer coming! So many twists & turns, successfully resolved!! Once again, Inspector Rutledge will not be satisfied until he learns the whole truth.
    • 5/5
      Furnham was a fishing town with very unfriendly residents that could spot an unfriendly outsider immediately when he walked into town. Ian Rutledge was the stranger that screamed police, and the residents screamed nothing but coldness and silence. What could they be hiding, and why would they deny that they knew anything about the dead man in the photo when he had relatives in the town and had lived there nearby as a child? The residents of Furnham were an odd lot with loyalty to each other and the entire town.Rutledge definitely felt all the answers to the murdered man were in this small fishing town, but getting the information was going to prove to be difficult. He returned time after time much to the anger of the town’s residents, but the clues were there....they just had to be “dug” out. Another thing to consider too.....was the current investigation connected to past people and past disappearances and murders? Is that why the town was so closed mouthed?Don’t miss out on this one ……Ian was on another great investigation in this Todd mystery and, of course, Hamish was there as well. The setting, the twists and turns of the storyline, the subplots, and the fascinating, well-described characters will again keep you involved and turning the pages. I always look forward to an Ian Rutledge mystery....you get completely involved with the story and characters. 5/5
    • 5/5
      I liked its intensity, its twisty plotting, as it weaved its way to a conclusion, the character of which I was beginning to wonder about. It is a similar ending as evidenced in Jamaica Inn. Charles Todd, has become a favourite of mine.
    • 3/5
      A man confesses to Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge that he committed murder. When the man is murdered, found floating in the Thames, Rutledge soon finds out he is not who he said he was. In investigating the murder, he winds up in a creepy little village in Essex, where he is definitely persona non grata. Rutledge is a wonderfully flawed character, a World War I veteran, suffering from what we today call post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s plagued with a voice in his head of a solder, Hamish, he was required to execute on the battlefield.My husband gave up on this series because Rutledge seemed to spend more time traveling to and fro than actually investigating the crime. I found The Confession frustrating to read for much the same reason: lack of focus on the actual investigation. Although the story was OK, I probably won’t read another in the series.
    • 2/5
      Solid writing as usual and Inspector Rutledge is as compelling as ever, but the story is too complicated by far. By "complicated" I don't mean I don't like having to think when I read, but this story wanders off into the weeds in a way the other Rutledge novels haven't. I am also wondering if Rutledge will ever progress as a character. Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith's novels is another wonderful detective character, but over several novels he has changed and grown, or at least his personal world has. The world of those novels, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, is hardly a cheerful place, but there is warmth and a sense of hope. I worry that Rutledge's post-war Great Britain will simply remain a bleak, forlorn place. I hope I'm wrong, though, because the previous novels are quite good. This one is somewhere between a two- and a three-star review.
    • 4/5
      This isn't so much a review as a plea to those of you picking up this book to read as an intro to the series. DON'T!! Please do yourself a favor and go to the library or Amazon and get a copy of the first book, A Test of Wills. Some series are fairly stand alone....this one is not.

      That said, :-) I enjoyed this one immensely. Lots of back and forth, more fleshing out of Ian, more views of his relationship with Frances, lots of quips and witty dialogue. Good read
    • 5/5
      One of the best ones so far.
    • 4/5
      Complex, interesting and compelling reading. WW1 and its aftermath provide the Todds with a rich vein of history that they mine well. Much angst and suffering are dredged from the Great War survivors before Rutledge sort the pieces and resolves past and current puzzles.
    • 3/5
      A man presents himself to Scotland Yard and confesses to a crime he says he committed. He then disappears and turns up murdered.
      Rutledge, accompanied by his "passenger", Hamish, the voice of a fellow soldier, for hose death he is responsible, investigate a very closed, angry community. possibly involved in smuggling, but possibly involved in very much more. Absolutely everyone has something to hide.
      The story is solidly written, but I didn't find it as interesting as former books in the series.
    • 4/5
      This was the first book I read by Charles Todd (mother-son writing team). I became impatient with the story and with the character of Rutledge; however after a month I was still thinking about the story and decided to re-read. I'm glad I did as I found I paid more attention the second time. While this isn't my favorite of the Rutledge books I still found the development of the moral sensibility of Ian Rutledge fascinating and well-illustrated in this volume.
    • 5/5
      Another really good read from Charles Todd. Simon Prebble does an excellent job of the audio presentation. Although this is #14 in the series, it is only 1920 so we haven't progressed very far from the demons and ghosts of World War One. Ian Rutledge seems in better control of his own personal ghost Hamish, but even so wonders whether sometimes people hear him in conversation with Hamish.Things are changing at the Yard. The Chief Inspector has had a heart attack and been hospitalised and so underlings like Rutledge are able to take advantage of the laxer supervision to operate this case on his own initiative. Of course that also means that the Yard doesn't actually know where he is and should anything happen to him, it will be some time before help arrives, if ever.The audio versions of these books are produced to a very high standard, assisted by the fact that each story is carefully
    • 4/5
      The hits keep on coming in the Ian Rutledge series. Todd's character development remains took notch as do the plots. This one has a loose ends in the way of mysteries but the end brings them all together.

    • 4/5
      Another excellent addition to the Ian Rutledge series. A perfect read when one is also following Downton Abbey on Masterpiece .
    • 4/5
      World War I has been over for five years, but the ghosts are still present for many, including Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. An enigmatic young man who is dying, comes to him to confess to a murder. Only problem is, he isn't, he didn't and soon he will not be available for questions. The more Inspector Rutledge digs into this case, the more it becomes a festering nest of evil.This was my first Charles Todd book. I found it to be an excellent puzzle. The characters are very interesting, as is the back story of Ian Rutledge. I ache for him. I was a bit skeptical of the maverick way he approached this case, with no backup, and exposing certain characters to danger without even giving them a warning, but chalked it up to an undeveloped police procedure at that time. Not knowing anything about the history of police procedure in Scotland Yard, this satisfied me. Very much looking forward to reading more of Todd's mysteries.
    • 4/5
      An insular Essex village hold the secrets to multiple murders and a false confession and Ian figures itnout with Hamish more in the background in this episode in the series. Is Ian on the road to recovery?
    • 5/5
      This was excellent! I am rarely blind-sided by the revelation of the killer, but this one was completely unexpected. And using the 'confession' of a dying man using a false name as the book's starting point was truly interesting.The voice in the back of his mind, adds an unusual dimension to the inspector.
    • 4/5
      The diligent detective from Scotland Yard can't think what is going on when a man tries to give himself up after confession to a murder of which he can proviide no motive or details, a few days before he dies. Other elusive characters appear as the Inspector deals with a really cold and rude to outsiders fishing village. The war plays a great part in the story as it has touched the lives of all the characters. There is a wonderful British setting and feel to the book although the writers are American. The ending is really surprising, with almost no clue leading the reader to it (I prefer having the tools to solve the puzzle myself, racing the detective.), but it is believable.
    • 3/5
      Ian Rutledge fights his demons, but in this novel Hamish MacLeod is fairly silent. A man enters Scotland Yard and confesses a murder to Ian. The man is murdered before Ian can question the man. Ian must go to Essex to discover the answers to this killing. Of course, the answers are not easily found, and more killings are uncovered. The story presents the village life in the 1910's and 1920's in England. The townspeople do not want change or intruders. Todd shows the class distinctions and the rigidness of village life. An interesting tale is about the smuggling of goods from France by the English fisherman. The endeavor is not primarily for personal profit, but to thwart England's taxation.
    • 4/5
      The Confession is the 14th book in the Ian Rutledge mystery series written by the mother and son team. This is the second Inspector Rutledge book I’ve read and while I did enjoy the first book, I found this one so much better. I think it was because the first one had much more political maneuvering in it. This one was all about the mystery.A man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses to a 5 year old murder that no one knows about to Inspector Rutledge. The man is dying from inoperable cancer and only has a few weeks left to live. Rutledge wasn’t sure he totally believed the man, but the story intrigued him, so while not opening an official investigation he started doing a little snooping around. He went and visited a sleepy and rather unfriendly village where the crime supposedly took place. Shortly after the confession and Ian’s trip to the village, the man who confessed was found floating in the river with a bullet hole in the back of his head. Not only that, that man was not the person he claimed to be to the Inspector. No one was sure who he was, but Rutledge suspected it might have something to do with the murder he confessed to as another man. Inspector Rutledge has an interesting knot to untangle in this one. There are a lot of clues and some get in the way of the actual investigation he is trying to conduct. As I said earlier, I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a real mystery almost like an Agatha Christie crossed with a Sherlock Holmes. It had the English countryside feel, though this one was the insular country folk unhappy with outsiders. The writing is good and the pace is nice but not intense. I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes British mysteries.
    • 4/5
      It took me a little while to get into this book,the authors have such a great feel for the time and place of these novels, but they do require total immersion. Love reading about the effects of the Great War on these little towns, as well as the secrets that they harbor. Rutledge is such a unique character, trailing Hamish around with him, definitely another one of my favorites. I did find keeping track of the four different men in the story a bit of a trial but enjoyed reading it nonetheless.
    • 5/5
      This is an intriguing mystery, set in London, 1920; the aftereffects of the Great War are still in evidence. A dying man confesses to an undetected murder before disappearing, only to be found murdered. Inspector Rutledge’s unraveling of this mystery leads to the uncovering of numerous other crimes. The situation becomes very complex, but remains believable. This is the first Inspector Rutledge mystery that I’ve read, and I enjoyed it very much. Plot, dialogue, and characters are all excellent (although I could have done without Rutledge’s Imaginary Friend, Hamish.)
    • 3/5
      This was the first volume I've read in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, so approached it as a "newbie". However, didn't find this to be a problem. The book is plot- rather than character-driven, so no need for a lot of exposition to familiarize oneself with on-going story elements or returning characters.The plot being this: In the years immediately following WWI, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses to a murder. The ensuing investigation involves a wealthy family that has experienced several mysterious deaths, characters variously scarred by the war, and an insular English village guarding a Terrible Secret.All of which is fine, except that if you're going to write a story that's plot- rather than character-driven, the plot had better be able to carry the weight, and I felt like this plot wasn't quite up to the task. Some of the elements were confusing, the terrible secret wasn't that terrible, the murderers' motive was (I thought) unsatisfyingly thin, and the investigation seemed to involve an unnecessary number of fruitless interviews and dead ends, each of which had the effect of further deadening what little suspense the writer managed to sustain. Which is all the more disappointing because there was promise here. Todd is a competent writer - competent enough to have created characters whose lives are all, in one way or another, immutably altered by war: villages devastated by the encroachment of modernity, families devastated by death of brothers/lovers/sons, brains scarred by the horrors of the front. If only he'd allowed these characters to drive the story instead of filling the requisite number of pages with fruitless interviews, red herrings, and endless descriptions of marshes, think this could have been a lot more suspenseful, meaningful, and memorable.
    • 4/5
      A dying man's spurious confession leads Inspector Rutledge into a puzzling tangle of a case in the marshes of Essex.I don't know if this series is getting tired or if I am.
    • 5/5
      This is the 14th book in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series. (If you want to start at the beginning, “A Test of Wills” is the first of the series.) This was the first Charles Todd book I’ve read, so I was worried the book would not hold up well on its own. I shouldn’t have worried. From the first paragraph, I was pulled in to Rutledge’s world of crime solving. The author subtly filled in the backstory of Hamish…the voice in Rutledge’s mind, and his shell shock. It was very well done, for the benefit of those who haven’t read the whole series.A dying man walks into Rutledge’s office and confesses to a murder five years previously. Except Rutledge hasn’t even heard of that murder. Oh, and the dying man is found shot to death a short time later, and he doesn’t appear to be who he says he was. To make things worse, Rutledge has to spend time in a small, creepy, unfriendly village while he pieces the mystery together.I loved the plot and the writing – it grabbed my attention from the start and did not let go. I will definitely read more in this series. Highly recommended for those who love old fashioned mysteries and good character development.(I received this book through Amazon's Vine Program.)